


5 Times Shemash'la was on the Table, and One Time it Definitely wasn't

by Alsike



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alien/Human Relationships, F/F, Kryptonian Culture & Customs, Kryptonian Naked Bathtime, Naked Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 18:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13816635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: Shemash'la is a ritual about connection, about affirming bonds, about family. It brings peace.How do you find that peace when your whole planet is gone?





	5 Times Shemash'la was on the Table, and One Time it Definitely wasn't

               

1

Some nights, Kara would fly up as high as she could until the air was thin and she could feel gravity thready and weak below her. This high there was no light pollution and she could see the stars, so many stars. She would shut her eyes and feel like she was floating. Without the weight of gravity--although it had little effect on her, she was sensitive to its pull--her heart felt buoyed by the faint thermals. And she remembered.

The ripple of the water had reflected off the domed ceiling, red purple shadows, making the space soft and warm. Kara floated on her back, gazing up, at peace, calm. A splash of water hit her in the face. Rearing up, she found her aunt, battled her, was captured by her, held tight, skin to skin. They fell back into the water, going under. Kara, held in a warm embrace, blinked her eyes open, gazing up through the shifting, seething water. She couldn't breathe there, but she knew her aunt would let her up when she asked. She trusted her.

She was safe.

She was with her family.

#

Alex wasn't sure what to do with this sad alien girl in her house. She didn't want her there, but Kara clearly didn't want to be there either, which took some of the pleasure out of making her feel unwelcome. So Alex put up with her.

After the arm breakage, things changed. Kara was being punished for something when she was only trying to help. The injustice was a little too familiar.

They changed then, from Alex and the Alien home invader, to Alex and Kara. Sometimes, Alex felt them becoming AlexandKara, and she would pull back, rein it in. It felt wrong somehow, dangerous. When they snuggled too close on the couch, Alex would be struck with an anxious knot in her stomach, and she'd look around to make sure Mom wasn't watching them; she'd pull away.

Even if Mom didn't tell them to stop, she'd _look_ at them, and Alex wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

On nights Kara stayed flat in her bed and didn't rise up to hover over it, she wasn't sleeping. Alex never told Kara that she sleep-flew, because then Kara would fake it, pretend that she wasn't having a rough night, and Alex wanted to be able to know. Tonight she was huddled up under her covers, looking miserable, and Alex lifted her own blankets and encouraged her inside.

"Tell me about Krypton," Alex asked.

Kara was as warm as a space heater, and Alex always got cold when she slept, so she didn't mind letting the girl in her bed. She didn't want Mom to catch them though, so she only let her in when she was looking really sad.

"I was thinking about shemash'la," Kara said softly.

"Mmm?"

"I've been here for over a half year, and I haven't done it."

"It's . . . a ritual?"

Kara nodded. "But I don't know how to do it alone. It doesn't mean anything without a family."

It was another thing she was supposed to have done with Clark, taught him, giving him the Kryptonian traditions that he'd lost. Superman was a total jerk. Alex sighed. "I wouldn't let you be half so much of a pain in the ass if you weren't family."

Kara smiled and snuggled against her, and Alex . . . put up with it.

#

"Alex?" Kara peeked in the doorway, wearing a towel. Her hair was loose and falling into her face. Aliens were not supposed to be as pretty as her, it was offensive.

"Hm?" Alex took out an earbud and watched Kara shift uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"I-- You said--" Kara swallowed, then stuck out her chin and was brave. "Will you perform shemash'la with me?"

"Uh . . ."

Alex wasn't sure she should agree to this without having more of an idea what it entailed. She trailed Kara into the bathroom, which was full of vapor, the bath hot and ready. What was shemash'la? Maybe it was like baptism and there was a ritual drowning practice. Alex was not totally cool with the idea of letting the alien she'd been mean to for years push her head under water, no sir.

Kara still looked a little tense, her face drawn and tired, like this wasn't _right_ . And then she reached up and untucked her towel. It slithered down her body and-- Oh. _Oh._ She was naked.

Alex slammed her eyes shut. "Oh no. No thanks. Nope."

She fled.

The soft sad noise Kara made haunted her.

Mom was always telling her to be nice to the weirdo alien, and try to accommodate her weirdo habits, and she _did._ She did her best. But Kara was small and delicate and didn't wear a bra, though she needed one, and Alex could not look at any girl changing without turning bright red. She stared with horrible firmness at her locker in gym, and didn't understand how other people could be so comfortable about it all.

There was no way in hell she was getting in the bath with the girl from outer space.

#

 

2

When Dad died, everything was different. There was a sour unripe persimmon feeling in Alex's gut, always. The world was bad and ugly and wrong. It had taken her dad, and now she couldn't help but see its flaws, its injustice, its filth.

Kara was silent and weighted down with guilt. They didn't speak or touch or connect, and her distance hurt in a sharp living way, while the missing space where Dad was supposed to be echoed with resounding emptiness.

Everything felt dulled and uninteresting. School, surfing, friends, they were greyed out, distant. Alex waited for a strong emotion to grip her, waited to understand the tears that overwhelmed her mother, for the soft sobs for her planet that Kara gave at night. But there was none, as if she felt nothing at her own dad's death.

She couldn't mourn.

She wanted to be able to mourn.

#

Alex had the exacto knife up against the skin of her thigh when the door to their bedroom slammed open and she nearly threw it all the way across the room. "What the fuck, Kara?"

The doorknob had gone all the way through the plaster of the wall. Kara was standing there, glaring at the exacto knife, as if she wanted to laser-vision it into a heap of metal but knew Mom would get pissed if she burned the floor.

Guilt welled up in Alex, and she hunched over. Why was she so weak? Kara had lost her dad too. She'd lost her entire planet. Kara hadn't tried to hurt herself.

Or maybe she had tried. But she was invulnerable now. She couldn't.

Alex peeked up through her hair. Kara was still standing stock still, in front of the door, feet planted, jaw tight. Her eyes though-- she looked at Alex like she was a traitor, like she'd offered her an ice cream with one hand and then sucker punched her with the other. _How could you do this to me_?

Alex dropped her head, putting her face in her hands. She breathed out, and the breath caught in her throat. "I just-- I just wanted to feel something."

She didn't look up for nearly a minute, but when she did, Kara was hollow, blue eyes limpid and open, that horrible resignation in her face, her posture. Alex knew that was the way she really felt. Kara felt like that all the time, gutted, lost, save for those rare moments when she was startled out of it, by laughter or awe or surprise. Alex ached, for her own emptiness, and for the rawness in this girl she was supposed to look after but could never protect from the pain she carried with her.

A swimsuit hit Alex in the face. Kara scowled at her crossly. "Put that on." Then she turned and walked out of the room.

Dressed in the swimsuit, Alex padded barefoot into the hall, looking for Kara. She felt uncomfortable and exposed, but even that feeling was deadened these days. She followed the sound of running water to the bathroom and found Kara sitting on the edge of the bath, her head in her hands, as hot water ran into the tub.

Kara heard Alex approach and shook her head. "This was a bad idea. You don't want to do this."

Alex didn't much want or not want anything these days. "It's all right."

She shut the door, because even the deadened feeling didn't mean she wanted Mom catching them in the tub together, even in bathing suits. She swallowed. "Tell me about it."

Kara looked up at her, past her, that long-range distant gaze in her eyes. She checked the water and turned it off. Then, slowly, she reached out, and Alex gave her her hand. They stood, side by side, by the tub, and then, after a series of quick looks, checking that they were going together, they stepped into the water.

The heat closed around Alex's feet, sending shocks up nerve endings that hadn't been responsive for weeks. The water vapor rose up around them, and Kara's hand didn't let go of hers.

"Shemash'la is about connection," Kara said, her voice soft, taking on the strange accent it had when she didn't try to sound American. "The water it-- it carries us, and links us to everything it touches. Not just connections to other people, but to the world, to ourselves."

Alex swallowed. She wanted that. She wanted it enough that she tried to keep herself from asking how a stupid bath could do that when nothing had so far. She kept her mouth shut and nodded.

Kara smiled a little, sadly, and let her fingers run down Alex's forearms, then closed them on her palms. "Come on then," she said. Alex followed the tug on her hands to lower herself into the water. It was almost a little too hot, and she gasped and shivered as she dropped down into it. But Kara kept a firm and stable hold of her hands. Alex squeezed Kara's back.

Alex was sitting, but Kara went down onto her knees, looming a little over Alex, and then moved her hands, gesturing for Alex to lay back. "Just relax," she murmured. "I've got you."

Alex took a deep breath, and then slowly let herself lay back into the water. It closed around her, heavy and liquid, warming her in a way that made her realize she had been cold before. Kara kept hold of her hands, moving them up and pressing her down further until Alex was on her back, knees up, the water closing over her face. Alex's eyes shut, and the water flowed over them, then over her lips and finally even the tip of her nose was submerged. It was so warm. Her hair billowed up around her, making a cloud of tendrils, and Kara's hands stayed steady and stable in hers.

She felt no urge up toward the surface. She didn't need to breathe, not yet. She stayed quiet, cocooned by water and Kara. A strange feeling strained at the center of her chest. It felt like something was unfurling, opening up. _Family_ , Kara had said. This was something you did with family. It wasn't anything Alex could do with her mom, and her dad was gone. But Kara's whole planet was gone, and she had chosen Alex to be her replacement.

The unfurling in her chest opened onto pain, diamond sharp, like the knife she'd nearly used on herself. Kara didn't have anyone else, and she'd made Kara think that Alex was going to take herself away from her. The pain blossomed further, breathlessness, she could now tell, hurting because she needed to breathe, because Kara was hurting so much, and it almost felt like she could feel it too--

Movement in the water, a brush against her face, a seal against her lips. Kara. Air. Alex gasped, taking in the offered air and also water up her nose, and she surfaced, gasping and sputtering, lurching forward to plant herself right in Kara's chest. The water splashed against the side of the tub, and Kara's arms went around her, and Alex panted into Kara's shoulder, her streaming hair falling over Kara's chest. Alex's chest seemed to rip right apart, opening up, everything flooding back in. Her dad. Her dad was gone. She sobbed, and Kara held her, her embrace just tight enough to bruise.

Kara cried with her, for all the things they both had lost.

#

 

3

When the taxi pulled up and Alex stepped out of the door, Kara could hardly stop herself from flying. She ran, her feet barely touching the ground, and yelled. "Alex!"

Alex turned, her eyes lighting up, her arms going open, and Kara tackle-hugged her, squashing her to the exact hardness that Alex liked, and Alex squashed her back to the extent of her puny human strength. Kara had been waiting _forever_ for Alex to get home.

Even though they graduated in the same year, Kara was still a little uncomfortable about the idea of going away to college, living in a dorm, surrounded by new people, all packed in like rats. Instead she enrolled at the Midvale JC and lived at home while Alex went off to Stanford. It was easier than adjusting to a new place, but being without Alex made even Midvale feel strange and unfamiliar.

Alex was home.

Kara could sense Eliza's amusement as Alex listened patiently to every single even slightly interesting incident that had happened to Kara in the months they were apart. But Kara knew that when it was time for bed, Alex would stay up late, telling her own stories. She just didn't always want Eliza to hear them. Under the table, Alex had her hand on Kara's leg, keeping contact, reminding Kara she was home.

It was Alex who suggested it this time. "Do you want to--" she nudged her head toward the bathroom, and Kara felt the warmth open up inside her. She hadn't been sure that it was okay to share shemash'la with a human, or that she would understand at all. But Alex did understand. Right now, at the moment of her return, she wanted that affirmation, that reconnection that the ceremony gave.

Eliza was out of the house, out shopping--which took a while, with Kara’s voracious appetite--and they laughed and talked as they filled the tub and stripped down. Alex was pulling her t-shirt over her head when she paused. "Oh, I forgot to get a suit."

"Do you need one?" Kara pulled off her own shirt and bra in one go, and Alex went still. She bit her lip, then shrugged.

"More authentic, right?"

She was a little pink as she unfastened her bra and shuffled off her underwear, and Kara got in first and tried to look disinterested, but Alex being comfortable enough with her to get naked made her happy. It was also so interesting how humans and Kryptonians were from such different planets and still looked so similar. She wanted to peek, to investigate further. Alex stepped into the tub and splashed down, and Kara yelped as water went unexpectedly into her face.

She splashed back, Alex, startled out of her self consciousness, went slitty-eyed and plotty, and one strike was followed by another until the floor was soaked and they were both laughing, and Alex grabbed Kara's feet and pulled her down. Kara didn't resist, and flailing, she was submerged.

She kept her eyes open and saw Alex hovering above her. Then, slowly, Alex lowered herself down, burying her face in Kara's neck just behind her ear, and let out the air in her mouth, making bubbles that rolled up through Kara's hair and over her skin before breaking the surface.

Alex's body was pressed against hers, sealed to it by the water, warm and solid and present. She held onto her, lifting up so that Alex could breathe, and clung as tightly as was safe. Alex was home. But she'd go away again, and Kara was so tired of being alone.

"Hey," Alex murmured, and Kara realized that she'd let her feelings rise to the surface, fill her eyes and begin to trickle down her cheeks. "You all right?"

Kara nodded. "I'm just glad you're home."

Alex grinned sheepishly. "Missed you too."

Sitting in the water, holding each other, the connection formed again, not through words or wishes, but through presence and touch. Alex's eyes flicked down to her lips, and Kara shifted back, letting the water rise up to her shoulders. She moved Alex on top of her, letting her settle back down on her hips, and let her fingers run along Alex's jawline. Slowly, almost infinitely slowly, Alex began shifting forward, a touch at a time, gaze fixed on her lips. Kara let her fingers play in the puddles of the divot of Alex's spine, gently stroking, encouraging her forward, and waited to see just what would come of this.

She wanted to know what would come of this.

Just as Alex's lips were a hairsbreadth from hers, a thump came from outside. "Girls? Are you in there?" The door came open. Alex fell, splashed, floundered upward, Kara skittered backwards and took a chunk out of the tilework.

Eliza stood in the doorway, still as a statue, mouth cold and hard and not understanding. The guilt on Alex's face, the horror, it felt like something shattering.

It was something shattering.

#

"Haha," Eliza joked. "Well, warn me next time about the alien ceremonies."

But she didn't mean it. She meant don't do it, stop being so strange.

They had waited until Kara was out of the house, but she had still heard the hushed beratement. "What did you think you were doing? She doesn't know what things _mean_ Alex, you do. It's your job to make sure she doesn't make mistakes like that here, not to encourage them."

Then even more quietly. "Alex. I know you know better than to take advantage of your _sister_."

Alex didn't come home for her next school break.

#

 

4

Sometimes, Kara remembered the way her mom looked when Aunt Astra was away on long missions, particularly one time when they'd fought, and Astra had stormed out and headed straight to Thanagar. There was something broken there, something missing. Kara had thought it was their twin bond, stretched to snapping, but on Earth she'd met other twins, she'd seen lots of different relationships, siblings, friends, parents, spouses and she knew there were different types of bonds on which to build a family. But some bonds were special, primary, in a way that others couldn't compete. Her mom's bond with her sister was that sort of bond, no spouse or lover ever went to the baths when they went together, and it was an honor for Kara to be taken with them.

Kara had thought Alex was all she had, and that was why the bond was so strong, why it was important that they performed shemash'la together. But as she watched other families she knew that if shemash'la had been a normal tradition on this world, she would have had other bonds, Alex's parents would have invited her to their bathing, perhaps some of her dear friends would have honored her with it. But it wasn't a normal tradition here, which meant that Alex honoring her with shemash'la meant so much more.

It meant that her abandonment hurt so much worse.

#

If you asked Alex how she was, she'd say she was fine. She felt fine. She didn't feel bad. Honestly, she didn't feel much at all, but she didn't want to feel things really, so she wasn't comparing it around.

Sometimes she'd wake up and a tiny voice would be screaming in the back of her head, _you're not fine, you're not fine, you're not fine_. But she shut it up quickly. It was just the hangover.

The month Kara had moved to National City to finish college, Alex went out drinking with her grad school cohort. It wasn't a big deal. Her cohort was always going out drinking. Alex was her usual grouchy self, and Kara was her sweet self, and if it seemed like they were on tenterhooks around each other, well, Alex wasn't. Alex didn't feel anything around Kara.

But she still went drinking. Her cohort had been surprised. She was usually antisocial and a workaholic. She never hung out. They laughed and said, Nice to meet you, Fun Alex, which would have been fine, if she'd been having any fun. But she hadn’t been, really. She drank and she danced and she kissed one of her labmates and then puked on his shoes. She woke up feeling like hell and went out and did it again the next weekend.

All of it was better than sitting at home, thinking about Kara coming to see her, thinking about her mom's face when she came into the bathroom, thinking about the tightness of Kara's mouth every time Alex ducked her company or pulled away from her touch. She imagined her coming in, dipping her head and shyly asking through her hair, _will you_? The thought made Alex’s stomach turn to iron. Kara didn't ask, didn’t ever really settle down in her apartment, and that made Alex sick too.

Eventually she went out without her cohort. She drank and drank until her stipend was gone and her rent was due and her lab work had gone undone.

She was on probation, and Kara was polite and quiet but not warm, and maybe she'd never offer again. Maybe she'd lost her trust. Maybe it all had been her fault, misunderstanding the ritual, taking things too far.

Kara showed up when Alex was passed out on the couch, just informed that she'd been kicked out of her degree program. Kara was beautiful, skittish and wearing her human disguise like a wooly suit. It looked heavy on her. It made her sweat.

Her eyes were sympathetic. Empathetic.

"Alex," she said with her eyes. "You need something. Please let me help you.”

"Can we--" she said with her mouth. She touched Alex’s shoulder, and Alex recoiled.

Her touch felt like poison.

"No! Get out! I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm _fine_."

Kara fled, and Alex left her apartment to drink herself so stupid she ended up in the drunk tank.

The rest is history.

#

 

5

It is quiet in Alex's apartment after she and Kara fell to earth. Alex had let the relief carry her for so long, Kara wasn't dead, the world was unchanged, warmth and friends and laughter, even if Alex couldn’t bring herself to laugh, even if she still felt the lingering dead cold of space.

She sat on her couch, staring out the window, and played with a glass of whiskey, but didn't drink it. Drinking kept her moving. It deadened her nights and put her to sleep so she could be rested for tomorrow. But she didn't need to be rested tomorrow. She had a week off while Lucy sorted everything out. She had time to feel.

A light rap at her door. Kara. She hadn't heard anyone on the stairs, of course it was Kara. She answered it.

"I thought you were with James."

Kara's eyes were so old sometimes. Loss aged you, and Kara had lost so much, but the only place she showed it was in her eyes. Still she smiled, half sad, half sweet. "I was. But I wanted to be with you."

Alex counted sins on her fingers, lies and deaths and betrayals. She lingered, thinking about the last betrayal, when Alex chose to die rather than let Kara martyr herself, when she had rejected the protection of Kara's love, because there was no world worth living in without her.

 _I want you to find love and be happy_.

I have. I am.

Alex didn't want to be any happier than she was right now. Kara was alive, so she was full of a quiet glow of joy. She had sinned against Kara, so she deserved that veil of pain. She would not wish it away.

Kara moved to the window, looking up, out at the stars.

Alex could have been looking up at the same sky and trying to find the speck of stardust that was her corpse.

How much stardust was made of Kryptonian bodies? Too much.

Once more, Kara's face, Kara's scream, as she beat Non, as she blamed him for the renewed pain she carried, echoed in Alex's mind. _You made me lose my family again._

She had no one left. Alex's hands were stained with Kryptonian blood. Alex had taken her aunt, Alex had dragged her out of the Black Mercy, Alex had brought her down from the sky, because she was selfish, because there was no world for her without Kara.

Crime after crime, and still Kara was here. Still she said things like, _I wanted to be with you_.

"Kar--" Alex said, her voice coming out scratchy and halting. Kara turned, her hair falling over her shoulder, her eyes calm and grey in the dimness, regarding. " _gav krep shemash'la?_ _izo :zhalish-div khap._ "

The words took their time to register, and Kara's face came open, all of it, her eyes, her lips, her hands. It was strange, how for all the words Kara had said on the broadcast, for all of the symbolism she represented, Alex had not seen this kind of hope on her face in so long. "You-- Really?"

Alex nodded. She forced a small smile. The last time had been long ago, but those moments were the ones she clung to, times where she had not had to be afraid of how much everything hurt, of how letting down her walls could let in so much, because Kara had been there, her solidity, her comfort, giving her the strength to face it. The water connected them, the press of her hand was warm and stable on her shoulder. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved, she'd read somewhere. Usually it wasn't true. Usually sorrows spread like worms, coming alive again after being sliced in two, redoubling themselves. But this was what it was supposed to mean. She wasn't giving her sorrow to Kara, and Kara wasn't giving hers back. It was an opening up, an unhiding. They could share their strength, and they let the water bear them up.

Kara nodded, quiet. They moved like it was a procession to the bathroom, where Alex put on the hot water and then swallowed hard and slowly began removing her shirt. Her body had changed since they had last done this. There were scars now where there had been smooth skin before. There were hard planes where she had been soft. Kara always looked, her eyes steady, accepting, but also remembering, as if she would file Alex away in her memory, a three-D model, for her to turn and spin and examine when Alex herself had drawn away.

Kara also was not the girl she had bathed with last. She did not scar, but she had grown into herself, her height, her power. As always, before her, Alex felt like a twig, so easily snapped in two, if Kara cared enough to bother. Her hands would be firm, soft skin belying the strength behind them. She would hardly need leverage, she could catch Alex about the waist, place a hand to her chest, and _snap._

Instead, Kara stepped into the slowly filling bath and reached out, and Alex stepped into her arms.

The water rough and rising around their ankles, Kara gently cupped the back of Alex's head, then moved her hands to cup both cheeks. Alex let her eyes fall shut and felt the brush of her lips against her forehead.

Slowly, inexorably, Alex sank to her knees. She cupped the top of Kara's calves and pressed her head against her thighs. She breathed, but the breath was ragged. Kara's hand descended upon her head, warm and solid, fingers tangling in her hair.

" _Kara_ ." It was all she could choke out of her swollen throat, but it said everything. _You are still here_ , it said. _I am so sorry_ , it said. _I am yours,_ it always said. _Take what you need and throw the rest away, because everything I am belongs to you._

_You are still here, and I am so grateful for it._

" _Alex_ ." She descended, arms looping around Alex's shoulders, cupping the back of her head so Alex's face pressed into her neck, holding her, like she was a feather, like she was a child, and sinking into the deepening water. It closed around Alex's back, warmth and support, _connection_.

"You hurt me," Kara said, her voice so quiet, so sad.

"I know."

Slowly, Kara lowered her into the water, kneeling over her, and pressed her fingertips lightly to Alex's sternum. Alex sank underneath, the surface resealing above her head, and then she opened her eyes again, gazing up through the ripples at Kara. The water bore down against her already pressured lungs, she held her breath, and then she breathed out, bubbles rising from her nose and mouth. Her eyes closed, she relaxed.

In Kara's hands, she was always where she belonged. Whatever fate Kara had in store, it was the one she deserved and the one she desired.

Movement of the water and a firm press against her mouth, an urging open, and Kara's lips sealed against her own, giving her air. She took it into her straining lungs and breathed out the remains, feeling Kara smile against her skin as the bubbles rolled up through her hair.

They lingered, Kara giving her breath. The weight of the water, or Kara’s body calmed Alex, as if her disordered feathers were all being stroked back into the right direction. She had anticipated the empty spaces, the tearing out, of feathers and skin and flesh and bone, that Kara’s loss would mean, but Kara was not lost. She was here. She filled up the ragged spaces again. She healed Alex, like the sun healed her.

Kara moved to her ear. The words were only bubbles and a hum, and yet Alex knew what they meant. She surfaced, taking a deep breath, and slid up the edge of the tub, planting her back firmly against it. She wiggled her fingers.

"Come here."

Kara leaned into her, slick skin against slick skin, her head resting on her shoulder, and Alex wrapped her up, as firm as she could. She was a weak and flimsy human, but she would make herself into stone, into titanium, into fire to protect this one. Kara lay against her. Under the water, her fingers stroked absently at Alex’s bare waist.

" _khepes rrip_ ." _I've got you._

Kara's fingers paused for a moment, and then she seemed to breathe out, sinking more deeply into the water and into Alex's arms.

"Okay," she said, her voice tiny and soft, and Alex held her even more firmly, and they stayed in each other's arms even as the water began to cool.

#

 

+1

Mon-El was exhausting. Kara still so tired. She had carried a great weight, her body had touched stardust. And though she was healing, the weight seemed to linger. She moved more slowly, she saw the world differently than she had before. She was not innocent anymore. Perhaps she had not been innocent since she had seen her planet die, but she had longed for her childhood, when she had not known what was coming, when she had not even imagined the loss she could experience. She had valued innocence in others, tried to protect it. But seeing the world from so far above, saving all the people who lived there, it became clear that it was not Krypton, and though she had saved one world, Krypton would always be gone.

She valued innocence less now. Instead, the slim memories of the pod approaching her floating, dying body, the ragged gasp as the hatch closed and the life support returned to function, Alex’s soft words, asking for love and forgiveness--they showed her a new thing to value. The gift of love and loyalty, the knowledge of the way the world was, and the fierce, uncompromising determination to protect your beloved one just the same. Her mother had given her that. Alex had given her that.

Mon El’s childish ways were a reminder that innocence in the face of loss and death was no virtue. He had been saved, but he showed no sign that the person who chose to save him and sacrifice himself mattered at all. He would never love someone more than he loved himself. He was an empty box, and sometimes Kara allowed herself to wish that the pod had been empty, or that the person inside it had been dead. She had felt so much hope straining at her chest, when the pod had landed, vain, desperate hope, that it was her mother, or her aunt, returned from the sun with new life in her, or it was a child she could love and care for and share her memories of Krypton with as she had been supposed to do with Kal. And grief at an empty pod or a dead loved one would have been easier to manage than the endless repetition of hope and disappointment that Mon El managed to provide.

But no matter what she had lost, she had more now too. She had Alex, could touch her, connect with her in a way she’d thought had been lost. Alex's guilt and quiet hurt had turned into gentleness. Shemash'la with her had always been special, and now it felt necessary. Every week, no longer just movies and ice cream on the couch, there was warmth and the embrace of water, and connection. And she had offered her even more than that, but Kara wasn’t sure if she was allowed to take it.

Kara didn't doubt Alex, not in the least. Alex had torn her chest open to reveal her heart, and its beat was the comforting drum giving rhythm to Kara's life.

But so much remained unsaid.

Alex speaking her little broken Kryptonian was a beautiful sound, and every time, it meant so much. She knew Alex meant the words, whether or not she'd intended them as the ritual phrase they had been on Krypton. She'd known the truth of those words from the moment Alex had given her that smile after she'd brought her back to Earth, that one that was gratitude and sorrow and hope all at once.

 _khepes rrip. You're mine_.

Shemash’la was good for both of them. Like the cracking of an egg, Kara could see Alex waking up, see the way the smiles came easier, the way she still wrapped into herself, but then reached out and touched Kara as if it were easy, as if Kara were the opposite pole of a magnet and the draw was irresistible. She saw her open up to Winn, befriend Maggie, trade jibes with Lucy. She was coming alive again, after her mother’s words, her inability to understand, had killed her. Often, Kara would turn and find Alex watching her, dark eyes, steady and soft. And Alex wouldn't look away, or pretend she wasn't watching. She'd give a guilty half-grin instead. Sometimes she would say what she was thinking and sometimes she wouldn’t, but Kara knew what it was, and felt the flush of pride and pleasure at hearing it. _You're a miracle._

Kara found her own peace stretched out in Alex's bed after long hot baths. She found her center, quietly sharing space with Alex. She had spent so long alone, that now, Kara had nothing to compare with what not being alone felt like. So she paid attention. Not being alone felt like the doubled beat of Alex’s heart, like the slow build of strength in the base of a wave or the strain on the foundation of a skyscraper. It felt like something alive and growing.

"Does she have a mate?"

The too loud words cut into Alex's laughter at the joke Kara had just told. Alex laughed so rarely, her arms wrapped around herself, her head ducked, her nose wrinkled as if she was annoyed at herself for being unable to resist her mirth. Mon-El's exhausting and irritating questions should not spoil it. The weight of his interest was like a lead coat hanging on Kara's shoulders. He was nothing she wanted.

She had what she wanted. She had family again.

Kara touched her fingertips to Alex's cheek. " _khepes rrip_ ," she said, soft enough that only Alex and Mon-El would hear. Alex's stance softened, her eyes brightened, and Kara leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth.

She could feel the astonishment, the tiny gasp Alex made. Her hand clutched at Kara’s sweater, hanging on as if she was terrified Kara would leave. Kara cupped her waist, reassuring her that she wouldn’t go. Alex gentled, kissing her back, as pliant as warm wax under her touch.

Alex’s smile was dazy and pleased when Kara broke the kiss. Winn made a helpless squeak. James huffed out a small laugh of understanding and possibly a little vindictive pleasure.

"Sorry, man," he said. "Looks like she does."

#

  
  



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